


Twelve Seconds To Understand

by pullmydeviltrigger



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Hannor, Hurt and comfort, I have a lot of feelings, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Swearing, They love each other so much, Yes he dies, and maybe a bit of an asshole, fairly wholesome, hank being a hurt asshole, hank being hurt, hankcon - Freeform, hopefully not as terrible a fic as im making it sound, mostly spoiler free, not a happy ending but not a really sad ending, replacement connor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-06-28 09:46:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15704754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pullmydeviltrigger/pseuds/pullmydeviltrigger
Summary: Connor really would take a bullet for Hank, but neither of them had ever actually stopped to consider why.





	Twelve Seconds To Understand

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is my first fic for Detroit but I'm so obsessed with the game I just couldn't hold off posting one any longer. This is super angsty because if you're not making people cry then you're not trying hard enough. For maximum feels read while you listen to the soundtrack's main theme. I would say enjoy but what kind of a sick bastard would enjoy this?!

“Connor!” Hank had screamed before the bullet had even made impact, directly into the other’s ear as the android had leapt in front of Hank as soon as he had seen the firearm being drawn and pointed at the man beside him. Hank sunk to his knees, the cold, snow slicked ground harder than it had ever been as he lifted the android roughly in his arms.

 

Connor was a mess-Thirium had ruined the entirety of his shirt and suit jacket, the cracked porcelain of his body visible from the malfunctioning skin in the face of his injury-it was almost beautiful, the intensity of the blue blood’s colour leaking out of Connor, the perfection in the plainness of the plastic under his skin. The cracks grew, almost like veins, spreading and blooming outwards as the bullet destroyed the young android so brutally from the inside out.

 

“Connor-hey, hey you’re gonna be okay Connor, you’re gonna be fine,” Hank stuttered, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so goddamn scared. He heard the crunch and the slaps of footsteps retreating in the snow of the perp, but he couldn’t rip his eyes off of his dying partner for long enough to care, for long enough to shoot the son of a bitch in the back of his skull. Not yet, anyway.

 

Connor coughed, and Hank saw blue fall from his mouth, as the skin that was still intact grew paler and paler. Hank begged, he implored into his partner’s big innocent pools of brown he had for eyes, when he saw them begin to close. Hank shook Connor in his grip, not caring about how rough he was being.

 

“Connor please! Don’t leave me, come on, we can get you help, we can fix you in time!” Hank’s voice was desperate; he could hear it himself but he couldn’t find the shame or the self-hatred to care. Connor couldn’t leave him, not again, not like this, not now. “Look I’ll call for medical, they can be here in five minutes, tops-” Hank fumbled around for his phone, a harder task than usual given his fingers were burning red and numb in the freezing snow-which had begun to pick up intensity, seeming to signal the start of a blizzard, Hank guessed-and his hands were shaking more than they did when Hank had had too much to drink even by his own standards.

 

He was interrupted in his task however, as one of Connor’s arms slowly and gently, or perhaps just weakly, pushed Hank’s phone in his hand down to the ground, while the other hesitantly and delicately cupped the side of the elder’s face.

 

“You know…you know I won’t make it that long, Lieute-Hank.” He finished softly, so much so that Hank could barely hear Connor over the harshly howling winds. If he weren’t in such terrible shape Hank could swear he would have slapped Connor in that moment.

 

“I have to try-we have to try Connor, please! You can’t do this-you can’t leave me, not now Connor, I-I can’t do this without you! I can’t-” Hank exclaimed desperately, carefully shifting the bleeding android in his arms, so he could take the hand Connor was using to caress his face in his own while he leant over the kid, his blood seeping into Hank’s clothes, onto his skin almost immediately. It made Hank shiver in the cold, and he finally let a tear fall down his face-he couldn’t go on if Connor wasn’t with him, he couldn’t lose the last person he had ever loved. Hank couldn’t be alone, not again; he wouldn’t survive it.

 

“Cyberlife will issue a replaceme-” Connor didn’t get to finish his attempt to comfort Hank, however.

 

“I don’t want a damn replacement, Connor, I want you! I don’t want something that has your memories and wears your face-I want you to make it through this-I know you can Connor we can get you help, please let me help you, let me save you,” He was ranting like a mad man, and Hank’s single tear had turned into many, which were streaming down his face by the time he was done, and he couldn’t do anything-he couldn’t even stop himself from his pathetic pleading while he sobbed over an android that not even half a year ago he would have shot in the ribs himself without a second thought if he was asked to.  

 

He couldn’t stop saying Connor’s name, hoping maybe it would keep him awake for longer if he kept reminding them both who he was. The great RK800 prototype, he should be indestructible, he should be able to survive anything.

 

But he wasn’t indestructible, he was in fact far from it, because of course he wasn’t, because of course those damn animals at Cyberlife didn’t care about what they were creating, they just wanted as much money as they could wring out of people. And that meant upgrades and replacements and damages and warranties. They were more robotic, less human than the machines they made. Hank felt a red hot singe of bitterness and fury in his gut at the thought, and its piercing of his glacial body temperature made Hank feel sick to his stomach.

 

“I am…I’m sorry, Hank. There is nothing we can do.” As Connor finished speaking, he looked up at his partner’s broken expression, a snowflake fluttering into his eyelash. He stared into his partner’s eyes, into the wrinkles around them and the sun damage of his face, his worn out smile, and he felt something inside him lurch for the first time as he noticed the tear tracks on his skin. He didn’t know what it was-it was an indescribable feeling, like a searing and destructive wave where his stomach would be which washed up to the shore of his throat and caught there, leaving a lump which wasn’t exactly painful, but it wasn’t pleasant. It was just…strange.

 

It was as if they could speak to each other just through the stares they offered each other, full of warmth and softness and hurt. Hurt by each other, hurt for one another, they couldn’t tell.

 

“Does it hurt?” Hank finally asked, most of the volume in his voice whisked away by the growing storm as soon as the words had left his mouth in an icy fog. Connor was taking longer to answer than before, despite his eyes being open and blinking, and with the way he was looking at Hank he was so clearly and so awfully _alive_ but Hank was about to shake him again when he responded, not breaking the eye contact he had held so demandingly with his elder.

 

“I don’t feel pain, Hank.” Hank stared down at him with a glare that should have been sardonic and biting at the response that was so basic, so programmed and robotic that it should have made Hank angry, but all he could find was a regretful and sort of horrified guilt mixed in with a bitter caring. Hank couldn’t tell what that must have looked like to Connor at the time. Hank let out a shaky breath that was meant to be a sigh before he asked again.

 

“Does it _hurt?_ ” He asked again, more pointedly, dawning the spark of recognition in his android counterpart’s eyes. Connor paused before answering again, but he was still looking into Hank’s eyes.

 

“No-not, not exactly but I don’t...” Connor saw his countdown to full system shutdown tick away, and he seemed to decide something in that moment, like a sorrowful lightbulb going off in his head. “I don’t want to die Hank. I don’t want to leave you-Hank I’m scared.” He blurted out, and Hank finally saw what he had been missing for so long, even if he didn’t know he had been missing it in his counterpart. He saw those wonderful, magical, brown irises drain of their whole-hearted and preposterous innocence and fill with dread, with fear and panic, and he felt Connor stiffen in his arms. “You make me feel Hank, I notice it when-when you smile, or when you tell me I did something well. I notice it when you look at me and when you’re safe after an accident. I don’t want to lose that-Hank I like feeling. I like living. I don’t want to die.” Connor’s words were frantic bursts of speech, so fast and so far away, retreating into his own terror Hank had to strain to hear. Connor could hear the ticking in his head. Constant. Precise. Deadly.

 

**_28… seconds until total system failure_ **

****

****

**_27… seconds until total system failure_ **

****

****

**_26… seconds until total system failure_ **

 

 

“Shh, Connor it’s okay, I’m here, hey. We can fix this, I know we can.” Even in Connor’s emotional state he could read through the words. The tears running down Hank’s neck, falling occasionally onto Connor’s suit might as well spell out “I’m lying-you’re going to die.” Connor didn’t care much though. He appreciated the sentiment.

 

**_24… seconds until total system failure_ **

****

****

**_23… seconds until total system failure_ **

****

****

**_22… seconds until total system failure_ **

****

“What would you do if you had twenty seconds to live, Lieutenant?” Connor asked, composing his emotions. He had managed to do so his entire short life, he could do it for the last twenty-two seconds.

 

Struck by Connor’s change in pace, Hank stumbled over his words.

 

“I-shit I dunno Connor, I’d take a shot, I’d think about the highlights of my life-I have no friggin’ idea honestly.”

 

**_19… seconds until total system failure_ **

 

 

**_18… seconds until total system failure_ **

 

 

**_17… seconds until total system failure_ **

 

 

Connor thought about his favourite moments in his life. The ones that had made him feel the most. They all surrounded around Hank-their work victories, the occasions in which Hank wasn’t coping and Connor would have to come and help him however he could, the times Hank would be too tired for the detour so he would just take Connor home with him instead of dropping him off at his station at Cyberlife for the night, the occasional walk with Sumo, the movie nights, the normal things they did, when Connor could forget that he wasn’t supposed to be enjoying anything, when he forgot that he was an android.

 

One of the movies that they had watched together had stuck particularly in Connor’s mind however. Connor couldn’t remember much about it, just that it was old, and two of the characters had finally kissed in the rain after the main character had found her missing pet, and after an hour and a half of them pining after each other. Connor had questioned Hank why they wouldn’t just wait until they got inside, how it must have been cold and how humans could easily catch an illness from this act alone, nevermind doing so in the rain. Hank had told him to shut his cake hole through watery eyes that he wouldn’t admit to on his death bed, and that it was romantic, and that he didn’t know how to explain it but Connor would probably understand it eventually.

 

Connor still didn’t understand it, really, but he had known that he always wanted to before he died. He looked at Hank’s lips, and, he thought perhaps he could comprehend the characters’ desire to kiss one another to some extent-their inability to wait for a more appropriate time and place, their longing too strong to wait, or, in this case, this being Connor’s last chance to ever experience the human phenomenon.

 

 ** _15…_** **_seconds until total system failure_**

****

 

**_14… seconds until total system failure_ **

 

 

**_13… seconds until total system failure_ **

 

 

“I want… I want to kiss you.” Connor could feel his strength leaving him as the words left his mouth.

 

Hank’s expression would have been comical in almost any other situation, completely taken aback and with no idea how to respond, and Connor would have loved to have savoured the uncharacteristic loss for words,

 

**_12… seconds until total system failure_ **

 

 

but he couldn’t.

 

“Hank, I’m going to die in 12 seco-mmph” Connor was interrupted as Hank leant down further, closing the gap between them and gently pushing his mouth to Connor’s, and Connor…Connor had never felt so much at once. He could feel Hanks lips trembling against his own, he could feel Hank’s tears sopping onto his skin, so cold he was surprised they had not frozen in the arctic weather. He could feel Hank’s lips, which were absurdly soft and gentle on his own mouth for the gruff detective, and he could feel Hank’s tongue, gently lapping against his bottom lip. He opened his mouth further, not entirely sure what to do, but mirroring Hank’s movements, and from the way Hank intertwined their fingers together in one hand and moved the other to the back of Connor’s neck, supporting his head as if he were a baby, Connor felt like perhaps he wasn’t doing badly. Their tongues moved against each other in a similar way as their mouths did, and Connor couldn’t put into words the way it made him feel-Hank was so good at this, and he was so gentle with him, and it was confusing because it went against almost everything he had known about the detective. It wasn’t even the mouth moving against his own so softly, so hotly, but the thought of him doing it which forced a noise out of Connor’s throat that he recognised as a moan.

 

Hank’s knees ached, his heart hurt, his entire body was freezing and the snow-infected wind bit at every exposed part of skin it could get to. The angle was awkward with Hank holding onto Connor’s body for dear life across him, as if he’ll die as soon as Hank lets him fall to the floor. The deafening echo of the wind was ripping into his ears and he knew that he was in a shit ton of pain, quite frankly-but he couldn’t feel an iota of it. He couldn’t distract himself far enough from Connor’s lips to acknowledge the pain-all he could feel was the kiss and the perfection in it, the unspoken words which were too awkward to ever explain, the lost looks that never quite made any sense to either of them, the suppressed thoughts they couldn’t make heads nor tail of. It was so, so much more than a kiss, and it made everything so much harder when the pain, both in his heart and head and his body, came roaring back to life.

 

It was only when Hank pulled away, sobbing tears silently and adorning a sad smile on his face that Connor realised he hadn’t been able to hear the clock while they kissed.

 

**_3… seconds until total system failure_ **

 

 

**_2… seconds until total system failure_ **

 

 

The last thing Connor saw was Hank. It seemed fitting, really. He looked up and from the expression Hank was giving him, he wondered why exactly he had never done this before. He felt a warmth spread through his body, paralysing the fear that had been steadily subdued but not at all fully repressed. The way Connor looked at Hank, with that heartbroken gratitude perplexed the younger almost as much as it helped him understand, because he did understand. He understood why Hank was smiling in the face of his obvious grief, and Connor did the same thing in the bittersweet-ness of the moment. His smile smaller, less polished and practiced, but just as genuine, and just as sad.

 

The expression Connor looked at Hank with was the nail in the coffin for Hank. The awe in this damn android’s eyes, like Hank had hung the moon and the stars just for him, and had flown him into outer-space just so he could see them all. And honestly? At this point Hank would if it meant he didn’t have to lose this little fucker. He looked at Hank like he understood the universe, like he was seeing colour and hearing noise for the first time after a century of being deaf and blind, like Hank was a God and had finally given him the power to experience life as it should be lived for the very first time in his life.

 

But in Hank’s heartbreak he also recognised that it would be the last.

 

Hank squeezed Connor’s hand in his own and Connor repeated the motion, the two feeling as if they were sharing worlds worth of knowledge with each other in the intensity of their shared eye contact, with the way they held onto each other. Hank’s proximity to Connor dizzying, he could feel the hot of Hank’s breath against the cold of his own mouth, the warmth a safe feeling in the uncertainty he couldn’t escape.

 

**_1… second until total system failure_ **

 

 

“Goodbye, Han…” Connor didn’t get to quite finish his last word before his head went limp and fell to one side, but the fact that it had been his name broke Hank more than he thought possible. He sat there, in the polar snow, sobbing, for what seemed like hours. He never let Connor go, he never let his body fall to the wet gravel which had been protected from the attack of the icy flakes only by the android’s dead body. When he was sure he was finished sobbing, and Connor’s shirt was soaked with tears above the bullet wound, once Hank trusted himself and his voice, he carefully looked into Connor’s eyes one last time, those eyes that reminded Hank of a sunflower. They were a shell of what they’d been-never, not in Connor’s earliest days, had they ever been lifeless. Connor had been many things-but never lacking in life. Hank gently closed his eyes with the hand that wasn’t full of the other’s body, and pressed a kiss against his temple.

 

“Goodbye, Connor.”

  

* * *

 

Hank was pretty sure coming into work two days later to see another RK800 sitting at Connor’s desk made things a hell of a lot worse. From the hissy fit he threw in which he may or may not have attempted to boot the android out of the building, the Captain would have agreed with him. After losing his shit at Fowler when he was called in to be reprimanded for losing his shit, the Cap’s confusion as to the sudden 360 degree turn Hank had seemed to pull off regarding androids left him little other choice but to put him on temporary unpaid leave.

 

Hank stayed away from the DPD for a long time. It felt like longer than it really was, though and he only took around a half a year to sort his shit out. He knew he would have taken longer, hell, he probably wouldn’t have come back if drinking still gave him the same kick that it had before. It didn’t though. Every time he took a swig of booze all he could see was disappointment in Connor’s infuriating puppy dog eyes. He saw the hurt and the frustration and the caring. He felt the guilt; fuck did he feel guilty when he saw that face behind his eyelids-but it wasn’t the same. It didn’t drive him to self-destruction mode the guilt used to hurl him into, no, it just sat in his belly, heavy and thorned, making him feel ill, like he had just eaten a meal that was a couple months out of date.

 

Things got a little better once he was back. After the initial fury he felt whenever he was around the RK800, the red hot rage that made his ears ring like he’d just been punched or stung at his chest like he’d been burnt with, it eventually felt good to be working with an android again. In terms of the job anyway-he was a damned useful asset. Connor had always been useful, but that was just the tip of the iceberg with him. Him and the new android became acquaintances again, and slowly, as well as extremely reluctantly on Hank’s part, they became friends once more, too. The new RK800 hadn’t mentioned Connor since the first time they had met and Hank had punched him in the face (completely illogically, since he knew he wouldn’t feel it, he just really couldn’t help himself) for introducing himself as Connor, and then telling Hank in that condescending damned voice how he ‘understood’ how ‘upsetting my predecessor’s death was’ for Hank, which had Hank picking the android up by the shoulders and bowling him halfway across the precinct. He had asked once again, one day when they were out working a case, interviewing witnesses of a violent android protest in the streets for more equality of rights which had left entire streets vandalised and multiple people left injured, one of which might not even come out of hospital alive. Despite the seriousness and the gloom surrounding the case, the pair had seemed to be getting on fairly well, the Connor impressing Hank with his detective work, and Hank being as tolerant as he’d ever been with the android.

 

“Can I ask you a personal question, Detective?” He inquired as they made their way to the car to sort through the evidence they had back at the office.

 

“I’m beginning to think it doesn’t really matter how I answer that question.” Hank bit out with no real harshness to his words or his tone, just a hint of smart-ass sarcasm.

 

“Do you hate me so much because you were romantically involved with my predecessor?” the prototype asked casually, no change in his tone, as if he had just asked Hank what he was going to eat for lunch. There was a genuinely innocent curiosity in his eyes, however, and a slight tilt to his head, and fuck, he looked so much like Connor. Obviously he always looked like Connor, but Hank could usually pick up on the tiniest differences between the two, and it made the word of difference. Sometimes, though, sometimes Hank felt like he had been struck by lightning and he had to actually close his eyes and take a deep breath when he saw Connor- _his_ Connor-in the identical RK800.

 

Hank had taken a lot of deep breaths before he felt like he could respond to that.

 

“I don’t hate you, kid, but if you bring him up again you can bet your ass you’ll see just what it’s like when I do hate you.” Hank ground out, his words laced with venom and his tone sharp. A miniscule glance at the android in the passenger seat forced a pang of guilt in his chest to rise up to his oesophagus, and the deeply disappointed and remorseful expression the other wore went straight to the lump in his throat.

 

“I’m sorry Lieutenant. I only ask as I have access to all of his memories.” Connor’s-no, not Connor, the RK800-voice spoke softly, as if Hank were some feral animal he was trying to calm. Hank hadn’t even thought of that, but he couldn’t bring himself to care anyway when he did.

 

“It’s none of your business what happened before you existed. So why don’t you cool it with the ‘personal questions’,” he spat mockingly, “and do your fucking job.” He forced out, before ferociously swinging the car door open and quickly turning the key in the admission.

 

Things got worse before they got better. Then they got worse again, and then, once again, they were better. Hank had good days and bad days, and on good days he and the RK800 acted like he used to most of the time with Connor-they were friends, not just partners at work. Sometimes, however, Hank hurt so much he was intentionally horrible to Connor’s replacement. Those were the really bad days. Hank had explained to him before, though, on one of the good days, that it wasn’t his fault he lashed out, that he was sorry, and that he didn’t want to hurt the other. He had even suppressed his “shut the hell up” when the android smiled and told him he couldn’t hurt him. They maintained a friendship, which eventually morphed into a strange sort of familial relationship based on the hurt and comfort they could and would both provide each other with when the New Connor Deviated. They never crossed the same lines, however. Hank wouldn’t-this New Connor may be a replica-an exact one at that, but he wasn’t his Connor-not really.

 

Years passed slowly, and Hank thought of him less, because he had New Connor to focus on, who was obviously just as mind-blowingly irritating and would never let him down in terms of being hard work. But Connor was always there. Over time, Hank became less sad and more grateful for Connor and the time he got to spend with him. Him and New Connor. He found himself laughing to himself when he was alone once, a bad day, considering whether he would be able to see Connor in android Heaven. He snorted at his own preposterously wishful thinking-as _if._ The thought that there was a heaven for people was funny enough without the idea that Hank would be there is there was, never-mind the robotic version. When New Connor came home to find Hank drunk and laughing hysterically, he hugged him and put him to bed once he had helped to sober and clean him up.

 

“You know what..y’know what’s funny?” He hiccupped.  

 

“No Lieutenant I don’t-” Hank had interrupted New Connor before he finished his sentence-he was good at that.

 

“I spent twelve-HICC-twelve seconds with Connor, twelve seconds where I-really, just, got it, finally-got _him_. Twelve fucking-HICC-seconds, and I’ll spend the rest of my-HICC-fucking life thinking about them.” Hank grumbled, most of the words slurred and hard to comprehend as the RK800 manhandled him as carefully as possible into bed.

 

The pause in New Connor’s reply was probably the longest he had gone in a silence without breaking it.

 

“I…he loved you Lieutenant, you became his whole life, too.” The android finally settled on, mulling over response after response to his partner’s drunken ramblings, unable to decide what would hurt the least and be most likely to make him feel better. He couldn’t help but feel sorry for the man that had become as close as the android would ever get to family, even if he was unsure if he had any right to feel that way, given the dysfunctionality of the situation. Hank just stared at him quietly in the dim of the room, lips slightly pouted and a hurt frown creasing his features, while a sad understanding flitted in and out of his eyes.

 

“Goodnight Hank.” Connor said when he assessed that Hank wasn’t going to reply.

 

“Goodb-” Hank interrupted himself with another hiccup and he sighed, drunkenly and reluctantly contentedly into the darkness. “Goodnight, Connor.” And the android almost froze in shock at hearing the name by itself, but overrode the desire to do so, and smiled as he placed a hand on Hank’s shoulder, before turning and leaving the room, reassuring himself that Hank was fine, and this was a good bad day.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thankyou for reading, I love comments/kudos if you're able! I'm not entirely sure if I've rated this properly, as I only really have experience writing explicit fics, so if you feel I haven't tagged or rated anything properly (or if you spot any mistakes I missed in my work) please don't hesitate to let me know. 
> 
> x


End file.
